SAP TechEd is a hugely important source of information, which some might refer to as the Holy Grail of Information and technology for SAP Consultants, Partners and Customers alike. Last week I got the chance to attend my first SAP TechEd with my talented colleagues from Rojo Consultancy, and it was incredible. It was a three-day event filled with knowledge, fun and networking opportunities. With over 900 scheduled sessions in various domains, I felt like a child lost in a candy fair. So much to attend yet only 3 days in hand.
Being an integration consultant, the integration trends were my main area of interest. I was not surprised that I could fill up my agenda solely with sessions and hands-on around SAP’s Integration Products, as SAP definitely understands and champions the importance of Integration. Cloud Applications are gaining popularity and Hybrid Integration landscapes are becoming common, this trend has given rise to an array of integration products. To create a sustainable Integration Landscape, Architects need to identify the products best suitable for harmonised execution of use cases. The Integration Solution Advisor Methodology(ISA-M) can come handy while doing this exercise.
Upon reflection of this enormous innovation event, I would like to share my views upon some of the major integration products offered by SAP.
SAP Process Orchestration
SAP’s integration product of choice for On-Premise Integration use cases. The biggest benefit that I saw was the support of Cloud Integration Content deployment on SAP PO. This product is already stable and is more on a continuous improvement path, like support of O-Auth2.0 for REST adapters, support of latest Java version for NWDS and conversion of existing Integrated Configurations to I-Flows.
SAP Cloud Platform Integration
SAP’s Integration Product for the Cloud. It is growing in popularity and is a perfect fit for cloud and hybrid integration use cases. It complements the SAP Process Orchestration and now it is possible to deploy your cloud integration content on PO. A number of new features were introduced like exception subprocesses in Web UI, ability to add or remove entries from Keystore without SAP’s help, message tracing and searching, connection test tool, async reliable messaging and an Aggregator that can help developers to collect messages based upon correlation. One of the much-needed feature was Regression test of customer i-flows, which would ensure that there are non-breaking changes in every release.
SAP WorkFlow
My personal experience with SAP workflow i.e BPM on the cloud was positive, but it is evolving and hence cannot be compared to SAP BPM yet. SAP Portal is required for the BPM Inbox, so ensure you have the subscription of Portal to setup Human-Centric processes. Currently WorkFlow only supports REST/Odata connectivity hence would need Cloud Platform Integration if you intend to interface with a system that does not support either. The exceptions, mappings and monitoring are the major areas in which the product is currently lacking.
SAP API Management
In the world of microservices and APIs SAP’s API management fits perfectly in your cloud or hybrid landscapes. It is incredibly easy to expose, consume and control the APIs with the help of API management. In a matter of hours you can set-up pricing policies(monetisation), usage, caching, traffic management etc for the APIs.
SAP Data Hub
SAP Data hub is the answer to your Data Integration use cases. It is highly scalable, easy to configure product that can be used to integrate and manage data on Enterprise systems and Distributed data systems. It provides large set of connectors to connect to various Data Management systems along with the capability to orchestrate across data landscapes. It provides you
SAP Cloud Integration Automation Service
Cloud Integration Automation Service aims at drastically reducing the time needed to integrate standard scenarios between Cloud applications and SAP backend by providing guided/automated setup. Users no longer need technical expertise to setup a complex integration. It was presented as an innovation which is currently being used for SuccessFactors to S/4HANA integration and works with Solution Manager and SAP Workflow.
With increasing complexity of organisations, it has become more important to setup an operational, secure, robust and scalable Integration Landscape.
I look forward to following more SAP news and updates in 2018.
Written by Swati Singh, Enterprise Integration Consultant at Rojo Consultancy.